Տ Ա Ր Ա Գ Ի Ր Ն Ե Ր Ն Ո Ւ Ե Ր Ա Զ Ո Ղ Ն Ե Ր Ը . E X I L E S A N D D R E A M E R S
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Hratchya Najar Barsoumian
B . 1939 Aleppo , Syria . Lives and works in Paris , France
The city of Hratchya ’ s childhood , Aleppo , was filled with recent survivors of the Armenian Genocide – people who were trying to rebuild their broken lives . This traumatic narrative has left its trace on Barsoumian ’ s lyrical art . After graduating from school , he studied design before moving to Paris in 1966 to take up fine arts at the École des Beaux-Arts . It was in the workshops of this institution that the artist became closely acquainted with the color aquatint technique , a medium he would use to great effect in large abstract prints that evoke both musical and natural landscapes .
L ’ Amour de la Partition is from a series of engravings that Barsoumian produced for the fine art publisher Jacqueline de Champvallins , with whom the artist has frequently collaborated since the end of the 1960s . Like his 1970 folio Concert Imaginaire , this print is also associated with a musical subject . The combined use of agitated lines and morphing shapes arranged in a cascading manner produces an image redolent not so much of concrete matter , but of sensory phenomena : movement , echoes and sound waves . Barsoumian ’ s shapes seem to alternatively melt or swell up , perpetually on the brink of either disintegration or becoming . All of these flowing forms are connected to each other with delicate lines that transform the whole composition into a pulsating organism . A metaphorical musical score , the image also suggests allegorical allusions of wandering , dispersal and connectedness ։ a condition that Barsoumian often indicates in his Armenian titles , as in the folio Avaz ( Sand ).
Aesthetically elegant and imbued with poetic power , Barsoumian ’ s non-figurative prints mediate between the conceptual imperatives of Western abstraction and the symbolic import of ‘ Oriental ’ decorative art . His arabesque-like etchings reframe ornamentation as a return to the spiritualist roots of abstraction espoused by Wassily Kandinsky , while invoking a continuing dialogue with the legacy of ancient and medieval art from the Middle East . ( VG )
© Cafesjian Museum Foundation
« Մի երաժշտական պարտիտուրայի սերը », 1987 Թուղթ , ակվատինտ
L ’ Amour d ’ une Partition , 1987 Aquatint , paper